Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (25 November 1876 – 2 March 1936) was Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine from 1894 to 1901 as the wife of Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse and Consort of the Head of the House of Romanov as the wife of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia from 1924 until her death. She was the daughter of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, and a granddaughter of both Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Emperor Alexander II of Russia.

Born a British princess, Victoria spent her early life in England and lived for three years in Malta, where her father served in the Royal Navy. In 1889, the family moved to Coburg, where Victoria's father became the reigning duke in 1893. In her teens, Victoria fell in love with her maternal first cousin Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia, but his Orthodox Christian faith discouraged marriage between first cousins. Bowing to family pressure, Victoria married her paternal first cousin Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse, in 1894. The marriage failed – Victoria scandalized the royal families of Europe when she divorced her husband in 1901. The couple's only child, Princess Elisabeth, died of typhoid fever in 1903.

Victoria married Kirill in 1905. They wed without the formal approval of Britain's King Edward VII (as the Royal Marriages Act 1772 would have required), and in defiance of Russia's Emperor Nicholas II. In retaliation, Nicholas stripped Kirill of his offices and honours, also initially banishing the couple from Russia. They had two daughters, Maria and Kira, and settled in Paris before being allowed to visit Russia in 1909. In 1910 they moved to Russia, where Nicholas recognized Victoria as Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna. After the fall of the Russian monarchy in 1917 they escaped to Finland (then still part of the Russian Empire) where she gave birth to her only son, Vladimir, in August 1917. In exile they lived for some years among her relatives in Germany, and from the late 1920s on an estate they bought in Saint-Briac in Brittany. In 1926 Kirill proclaimed himself Russian emperor in exile, and Victoria supported her husband's claims. Victoria died in 1936 after suffering a stroke while visiting her daughter Maria in Amorbach.